


Good For Us

by moonflowers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mentions of Jazzercise, Post-Season/Series 03, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Soft Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 17:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowers/pseuds/moonflowers
Summary: “Oh I’m sorry,” Billy smirked, leaned up against the shelf, “have I interrupted something?” There was a scar under Billy’s eye and more up his arms, faint and silvery pink against his tanned skin, not all that noticeable unless you were looking for it. And Steve had been looking more and more, lately. Enough to notice he did up a couple more buttons on his shirts than he used to. “Didn’t realise blond and beefy was your type, Harrington.”





	Good For Us

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic title for these bastards that I didn’t steal from a song???
> 
> SPOILERS AHOY. I want to write so many things rn I don’t know what to do with myself. There is just… so much Billy to work with that this little thing does not really do justice. While I figure it out, here’s a ficlet that belongs firmly in the 'Steve and Billy dance around each other in the video store and Robin knows what’s up' trope. Also I love jazzercize man.  
> For the sake of this, I guess we’ll go either the Joyce turned the machine off earlier or Billy’s injuries didn’t kill him route. Either works.

Steve was busy putting a stack of returned tapes back in their places. Well, he was trying to look like he was busy putting tapes back in their places, but what he was actually doing was watching Robin talk to a cute girl over the counter. She’d come in with a pack of giggly friends who’d since wandered off to browse the shelves, but the redhead had stayed at the counter, claiming she’d already seen most of ‘em anyway. Most girls Robin flirted with didn’t seem to get it, but so far this one looked like she knew what was up. Good for Robin. 

It was early evening, all long orange shadows outside, and a rush of noise across the street made Steve look up from the work he was pretending to do. A lot of businesses had opened up again along the main drag after the mall had gotten trashed, so many that a lot of the rooms above the stores were leased out too. It was from one of these that a group of ladies came pouring out from their jazzercize class, chattering and laughing in their legwarmers and leotards, followed by the same big blond dude he and Dustin had mistaken for a Russian agent. Nice to see he’d still kept his job after the Starcourt fiasco. Good for him. 

Since his little talk with Robin that night on the bathroom floor, Steve had been doing a lot of thinking. About all of it; the mall, the whackjob mayor, the secret codes, Tammy Thompson, the mindflayer made flesh and the people who’d died because of it, and the Russians who’d been ready to yank out his fingernails. Bastards. None of it had really helped his already sketchy sleep patterns. He’d thought about Hargrove too. He’d seen him around, dropping off Max and whatever, and thought to himself a hundred fuckin’ times go talk to him. But they’d never exactly been friends before, and what the hell was he supposed to say anyway? He kept telling himself it wasn’t like they didn’t talk at all, they still threw the same shit at each other that they used to, if not quite so violently. But now, he found himself tongue tied around him when he never had been before. And it definitely wasn’t the mindflayer thing, not entirely. No one else seemed to have any trouble talking to him – he knew that Hargrove had hashed it all out with Joyce, and El and Will, before they’d left, and he’d started to look a little less haunted. Shit, even Mike and Lucas seemed okay with him now. Good for them.

“Hey, Harrington,” the bell above the door rang as Billy sauntered in, still himself in tight jeans and painted on shirt and sharp little smile, but a little softer, a little quieter, talking like he was sitting at the back of the library and didn’t want to get shushed. 

Steve jumped and looked away from the window, familiar tightness that came hand in hand with the sight of Billy Hargrove these days creeping up his back. “Hey, man.”

Billy followed his previous line of sight out across the street, to where jazzercize guy was slinging his boombox into the trunk of his car, workout shirt a vivid pink and low enough that you could see his nipples.

“Oh I’m sorry,” Billy smirked, leaned up against the shelf, “have I interrupted something?” There was a scar under Billy’s eye and more up his arms, faint and silvery pink against his tanned skin, not all that noticeable unless you were looking for it. And Steve had been looking more and more, lately. Enough to notice he did up a couple more buttons on his shirts than he used to. “Didn’t realise blond and beefy was your type, Harrington.”

And he was clearly, _painfully clearly,_ just yanking Steve’s chain, just like he always had, same ol’ Hargrove or whatever. And he knew that, of course he did, but that didn’t stop his heart rate kicking up, face getting hot and tongue heavy and useless in his mouth. Robin had told him a bunch of times that Billy was into him, but he’d never quite let himself believe her. If anything it had only made him worse. He was so far off his game these days it was fucking laughable. 

“It’s not,” he yelped, and shoved a tape back onto the shelf at random. But after a moment, he released his death grip on the tape, swallowed his pride and made himself meet Billy’s eyes. Which he immediately wished he hadn’t, because the store’s AC was making his soft honey curls move gently around his face, as well as wafting a wave of his cologne right at him. He still looked like the album cover for a soft rock ballad for fucks sake; even possession by an interdimensional monster hadn’t changed that.

Billy rolled his eyes, but still looked pleased with himself at how flustered he’d gotten him. “I was joking Harrington, jeez.”

“I know,” Steve shook his head, willing his face to cool down as he put another tape back on the shelf. None of them were in the right spots, he’d have to do it again later.

“Yeah?” Billy folded his arms across his broad chest. He wasn’t quite so thickly muscled as he had been before everything had gone to shit, thanks to the weeks he’d spent recovering. But he was starting to look like himself again, gaining muscle back, less pale and sickly, back to the glowing gold he’d strutted into Steve’s life with. Not that it mattered, Steve would still have wanted him any which way. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t good to see him looking better, the proof that he was going to be okay. “Then how come you’re so pissy?”

“I –“ Steve looked desperately over to Robin in the hopes she might take pity and come save him, but she was still talking to the cute redhead at the counter, and he wasn’t about to fuck it up for her. He sighed. Time to be a big boy. “Because I think you might be right.”

Even as the words left his mouth, Steve had no idea how Hargrove was going to take it. Billy from last year might have scowled and hissed and pushed him up against the shelf. Laughing at him for it, or laughing it off entirely were also pretty likely. More grossly exaggerated flirting maybe, just to pull a reaction out of him. Despite all of those equally shitty outcomes, a little part of Steve hoped that Billy might feel something similar, or he wouldn’t have dared lay himself on the line like that. But what he hadn’t been expecting was for Billy to go quiet on him. When the silence had stretched out a few heavy moments too long and Steve started to feel twitchy, he looked up to see Billy frowning at the linoleum floor, cheeks pink and mouth in a little loose ‘o.’ 

“Uh. You okay there Hargrove?”

“Uh yeah I just…” he blinked, all dark lashes and big baby blues, “been wantin’ to ask you for a while if you…”

The lack of a punch on the nose made Steve feel a little bolder. “If I what?”

“Wanted to hang out?” he finished gruffly, hands stuffed in his pockets and not quite meeting Steve’s eye. “I’ve talked a lot about… everything with the brats and even Wheeler, but never you. You don’t have to, I’m not that fuckin’ hard up for company and shit, I just thought it might… I mean, not that that’s all I want to talk about but – “

“Yeah.” Steve interrupted, thrown off course by the longest string of words he thought he’d ever heard out of his mouth. “That’d be cool, man.”

Billy was smiling again, soft and happy and nose scrunched up, before he pressed his lips together in an obvious attempt to hide it. “Great. I’ll see you later, pretty boy.”

He left without renting anything, which made Steve wonder why exactly he’d even come in in the first place. It couldn’t have been just to see Steve, or maybe their talk had distracted him from making his choice of movie. Either was a win. He was practically bouncing as he stuffed another tape back in a random space, wondered if Robin had seen enough to let him put a mark under the ‘You Rule’ side of the board. Good for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Lol I was already guilty of writing Billy too soft, I have a feeling this post s3 bullshit is going to be a whole new level.


End file.
